Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog

Reporting? What’s that?

September 20, 2016

media, US politics
James Taranto observes:

In our Friday column, we noted that Trump had acceded to years of media demands and declared that Barack Obama was born in the United States. Those demands were as phony as the “questions” about the president’s birthplace. Rather than credit Trump for finally admitting the truth, the media turned on him with a new kind of viciousness.

That is, they followed the urgings of Jay Rosen and Jim Rutenberg and tore down the wall between news and opinion. The following quotes all come from news stories, not editorials or columns:

Associated Press: “After five years as the chief promoter of a lie about Barack Obama’s birthplace, Donald Trump abruptly reversed course Friday and acknowledged the fact that the president was born in America. He then immediately peddled another false conspiracy.”

Reuters: “Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Friday abandoned his false claim that Barack Obama was not born in the United States after spending five years peddling conspiracy theories that the country’s first African-American president started life as a foreigner. But, never one to let a controversy go without fanning its flames, Trump accused Hillary Clinton . . . of starting the so-called birther movement in her failed 2008 presidential campaign against Obama, a claim that does not stand up to scrutiny.”

New York Times: “Donald J. Trump publicly retreated from his ‘birther’ campaign on Friday, tersely acknowledging that President Obama was born in the United States—and effectively conceding that the conspiracy theory he had promoted for years was baseless. Mr. Trump made no apology for and took no questions about what had amounted to a five-year-long smear of the nation’s first black president. Instead, he claimed, falsely, that questions about Mr. Obama’s citizenship were initially stirred by the Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, in her unsuccessful primary contest against Mr. Obama in 2008.”

Washington Post: “Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Friday acknowledged for the first time that President Obama was born in the United States, ending his long history of stoking unfounded doubts about the nation’s first African-American president but also seeking to falsely blame Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for starting the rumors.”

CNN: “Donald Trump finally admitted Friday that ‘President Barack Obama was born in the United States,’ reversing himself on the issue that propelled him into national politics five years ago. . . . But the issue isn’t likely to die down any time soon—especially as Trump continues to falsely blame Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton for starting the ‘birtherism’ controversy.”

There are plenty more examples, along with lots of editorials and columns that were more or less indistinguishable from these news stories—and that indistinguishability is the point. In response to Trump’s statement, news reporters felt free, perhaps even duty-bound, to editorialize against him.

In doing so, they perpetuated a falsehood by denying Trump’s assertion that “Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy.” A McClatchy report provides the evidence that the campaign, in the person of longtime Clinton consigliere Sidney Blumenthal, did just that:

Former McClatchy Washington Bureau Chief James Asher tweeted Friday that Blumenthal had “told me in person” that Obama was born in Kenya.
“During the 2008 Democratic primary, Sid Blumenthal visited the Washington Bureau of McClatchy Co.,” Asher said in an email Friday to McClatchy, noting that he was at the time the investigative editor and in charge of Africa coverage.
“During that meeting, Mr. Blumenthal and I met together in my office and he strongly urged me to investigate the exact place of President Obama’s birth, which he suggested was in Kenya. We assigned a reporter to go to Kenya, and that reporter determined that the allegation was false.
“At the time of Mr. Blumenthal’s conversation with me, there had been a few news articles published in various outlets reporting on rumors about Obama’s birthplace. While Mr. Blumenthal offered no concrete proof of Obama’s Kenyan birth, I felt that, as journalists, we had a responsibility to determine whether or not those rumors were true. They were not.”
Blumenthal denied it, and some journalists took his side against Asher. “Imagine a reporter claiming Steve Bannon once told him that Hillary killed Vince Foster,” tweeted the Washington Post’s Dave Weigel, who finished the thought: “Do you ask the reporter for more proof? Or do you run with it?” Later, he added: “Journalism, er, isn’t about taking someone’s word. If your mother says ‘I love you,’ you verify it.”

Which is exactly what Asher says he did. Blumenthal told him Obama was born in Kenya; Asher sent a reporter there to check out the claim, which turned out to be baseless. But in Weigel’s analogy, Asher is the putatively loving mother. Weigel is setting up a standard he cannot possibly mean to apply in general: When a reporter reports that a source told him something, do not believe him without further verification.
Other journalists stipulated that Asher’s account was truthful but tried to draw a distinction disadvantageous to Trump. The most revealing example came from Mark Murray, NBC News’s senior political editor: “If someone shopped the story—and no media outlet ran with it—is that really ‘starting’ it? Not how I see it.”

We replied: “In other words, Trump is to blame because the media paid him so much attention.” Murray: “We paid attention to Trump bc he was holding press conferences and interviews on topic. No similar behavior from ’08 HRC camp.”

It seems to us that if a whispering campaign is followed by an open one, it is reasonable to think the former “started” it. One can also make a strong case that a whispering campaign is worse because it allows the campaigner to evade accountability.

But what interests us most here is Murray’s justification for the attention the media lavished on Trump’s various bloviations about Obama’s birthplace. To be sure, anything he has ever said is newsworthy now that he is a presidential candidate. But why did journalists bother with Trump’s nonsense before June 2015?

In part no doubt because Trump is a fun and colorful figure who is good for ratings. But this column has argued, and we continue to believe, that the liberal media had a partisan interest in promoting birtherism so as to make Republicans look crazy and racist.

That theory is consistent with the frenzied reaction to Trump’s acknowledgment that Obama was born in the U.S. and his effort to shift the onus to Mrs. Clinton. In a hilarious interview with Mike Pence over the weekend, ABC News’s Martha Raddatz asked: “Why did it take him [Trump] so long to put it to an end?” Pence simply said, “It’s over,” to which Raddatz replied plaintively: “It’s not over.”

And we suppose it’s not, or we wouldn’t be writing about it. But now we’re talking about who started it—and on that question the facts are not on Mrs. Clinton’s side, even if the media are. Trump spent half a decade trolling the media with birther baloney, only to implicate Mrs. Clinton in the end. Whether that was his strategy from the start or a recent tactical adaptation, it’s dazzling gamesmanship on his part.

The question is whether the media’s open hostility will hurt Trump and help Mrs. Clinton. It may have the opposite effect. As the social psychologist Robert Cialdini—who is rumored to be advising Mrs. Clinton’s campaign—observes in his new book, “Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade”:

The central tenet of agenda-setting theory is that the media rarely produce change directly, by presenting compelling evidence that sweeps an audience to new positions; they are much more likely to persuade indirectly, by giving selected issues and facts better coverage than other issues and facts. It’s this coverage that leads audience members—by virtue of the greater attention they devote to certain topics—to decide that these are the most important to be taken into consideration when adopting a position. As the political scientist Bernard Cohen wrote, “The press may not be successful most of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling them what to think about.”
In that vein, consider what happened over the weekend, after a spate of comparatively low-level terrorist attacks and attempts in Minnesota and the New York area. Most notably, a bomb made from a pressure cooker—similar to the one used in the fatal Boston Marathon attack in 2013—exploded in the Manhattan neighborhood of Chelsea, wounding 29 but killing nobody.

Trump mentioned the attack in a Colorado speech, and as the Hill reports, “the press . . . largely slammed Trump for referring to the explosion as a ‘bomb’ too soon.” But one news network went further:

CNN edited out the opening sentence of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s statement during breaking news coverage of an explosion in New York City that injured 29 people.
Clinton was on board her campaign plane Saturday night when she addressed the press following the explosion in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood.
According to an ABC News transcript below, Clinton called the attacks in New York and New Jersey “bombings” before criticizing Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump—who also referred to the explosion as a “bomb”—in an attempt to show contrast between the temperament of the two candidates, who are deadlocked in the polls.
The apparent intention is to make Mrs. Clinton look “responsible,” but the effect may be to make her look complacent. CNN is inducing viewers to think about terror, but what they think about it is up to them. Cialdini: “According to this view, in an election, whichever political party is seen by voters to have the superior stance on the issue highest on the media’s agenda at the moment will likely win.”

For some in the media, though, it may be more personal. Consider this exchange from NBC’s “Meet the Press” yesterday, between host Chuck Todd and New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd:

Todd: New York Times, I think it was Saturday, Maureen, had a lead that said, basically interviewing all these Upper West Siders panicking now. And in fact I think referred to it as “The polls are showing a ‘margin of panic’ for Clinton supporters.” Describe this east coast freakout that I feel like you’ve seen among the elites this week.
Dowd: Right. Well my friends, one of my friends, Leon Wieseltier, calls it a national emergency. And my friends won’t even read, if I do interviews with Donald Trump, they won’t read them. And basically they would like to censor any stories about Trump and also censor any negative stories about Hillary. They think she should have a total free pass. Because as she said at that fundraiser recently, “I’m the only thing standing between you and the abyss.” Oh, and they’re taking— Democratic strategists are taking antacids. In the Times today.
The Times story is well worth reading; if it doesn’t make you laugh, you have a heart of stone.

Imagine being a political reporter who sees the world in that Upper West Side way, and so do all your friends. But you operate under the professional constraint of being impartial, or at least appearing impartial. Suddenly Trump does something so dramatic that a signal goes through the media hive: The constraint of impartiality has been lifted.

It’s bad for journalism as an institution. It may be bad for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign—and hence for the country if you think Trump is a national emergency. But would you be able to resist surrendering to the frisson of liberation, the immediate gratification of shouting “LIAR!”? And as you did surrender, wouldn’t you feel a twinge of gratitude to the man who made it possible?
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The first birther

September 20, 2016

US politics
Back in 1988, Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis was attacked by George H.W. Bush over a prison inmate Massachusetts let out on furlough, Willie Horton, who ended up committing more crimes while out of prison.

Less noticed at the time was that the Willie Horton issue wasn’t first brought up by the Bush campaign. It was brought up first by Dukakis’ fellow Democrat, Al Gore.

That came to mind with the tiresome reintroduction of Barack Obama’s alleged birthplace, brought up most recently by Donald Trump, who accused Hillary Clinton of bringing it up first.

Facebook Friend Michael Smith brings up who is actually responsible:
“Imagine you’re a hippie kid. Your dad is some Kenyan big wig. Your mom is a self-important sociologist doing such important work that you, Barack Obama, must be left home with grandma and grandpa.

You are boring.

You are a mixed race kid on Hawaii in the sixties which is not a big deal because everyone has Hawaiian blood and has mocha skin. You are relatively wealthy and end up at a prep school with other wealthy kids.

You have to justify your existence.”

~ Dr. Melissa Clouthier

What is it that these people, all in the news within the past couple of election cycles, have in common?
- Richard Blumenthal
- John Edwards
- Elizabeth Warren
- Barack H. Obama
- Hillary Clinton
That they all are liars is, of course, one thing – but that isn’t the only thing.
- Dick Blumenthal won election to the Senate from Connecticut even after being exposed as blatantly lying about his military career.
- John Edwards created the persona of a “son of a mill worker” and a devoted husband when he was actually a filthy rich trial lawyer and was cheating on his cancer stricken wife with his baby mama, Rielle Hunter.
- Elizabeth Warren, aka Fauxcohantas, is the $500,000 a year Harvard professor, self-identified “mother of the OWS movement” and the Democrat US Senate candidate from Massachusetts who pretended to be part Cherokee to gain advantage in her career.
- In the 1990’s, Obama created a false identity to make himself seem more interesting and marketable and during his political career he created another persona in order to fool enough people to get elected.
- Hillary Clinton shamelessly lied about Benghazi (well, she lies about pretty much everything) and still is the Democrat nominee.
So…if someone claims Resident Obama was born in Kenya, that makes them a “birther”, right? At least that is the latest spin on a dead, irrelevant “issue” the Clinton campaign has resurrected in order to try to paint Trump as a racist.

So let me introduce you to the original “birther”, President Barack Obama himself.

For over 15 years, Obama sat by as his author’s bio stated unequivocally that he was born in Kenya.

The characteristic Hillary and the gang listed above share is that they have created alternate versions of themselves in order to “sell” themselves to the public at large. Why? Is it because their “real” selves couldn’t get elected? Is that why they have to fool the electorate to gain power?

Let me ask you this: if someone has to create a façade to get you to believe in them are you voting for the real person or the façade? How will the person behave after you have put them in power over you and given your trust to them, will they behave like the façade or the person they truly are?

One thing that I have learned over these many years in managing people is this: we are who we are. By that, I mean that behavior is behavior and it is almost impossible to change that behavior. It takes a lot of energy to modify who we are at our core and even more to sustain that change. Radical behavioral changes are almost never sustainable and in moments of stress, crisis or challenge, we tend to revert to our core.

We are who we are and they are who they are.

That’s why having a fair, impartial, robust and inquisitive press is critical to democracy – but with the exception of Fox News and sadly, sometimes the lowly National Enquirer, we now have only advocacy journalism. These “news” organizations are totally uninterested in anything that doesn’t advance their chosen narrative.

In the prologue to the second of his autobiographies, The Audacity of Hope, he said:

“I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”

And yet he was still elected…because he was shielded from inquiry by a willing and compliant press.

This Kenya thing should have driven the final nail in the coffin of media bias…This is complicity at the highest level. As Ace at AOSHQ reports, the bio was not corrected until 2007. Curiously, Obama also announced his run for the presidency in February of 2007. He gave a keynote speech at the Democrat convention in 2004, so it isn’t like this wasn’t out there to be found. They seem not to have had any trouble finding trumped up issues with Mitt Romney’s high school pranks from 1965, so this one should have been a “gimme”.

But it wasn’t.

It didn’t fit the chosen narrative.

Perhaps this illustrates another, more chilling prospect, that the media did know about this and decided that it was something that the public just didn’t need to know…for any reason. That is what is done in totalitarian states. Same with Hillary, they aren’t finding scandals simply because they don’t want to look.

It is an issue now because the media themselves made it an issue by not reporting on it several years ago and giving Obama the chance to respond to it. Now it just looks like they were covering for him whether they were or not.
Obama’s literary agent claimed for years that Obama was born in Kenya. Obama can’t even tell the truth about himself.
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Presty the DJ for Sept. 20

September 20, 2016

Music
The number one British single today in 1969 wasn’t from Britain:

The number one U.S. single today in 1969 came from a cartoon:

The number one British album today in 1969 was from the supergroup Blind Faith, which, given its membership (Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker of Cream and Steve Winwood), was less than the sum of its parts:

(more…)
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How low can they go?

September 19, 2016

US politics
The Observer reports a Hillary embarrassment:

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is stealing from her poorest supporters by purposefully and repeatedly overcharging them after they make what’s supposed to be a one-time small donation through her official campaign website, multiple sources tell the Observer.

The overcharges are occurring so often that the fraud department at one of the nation’s biggest banks receives up to 100 phone calls a day from Clinton’s small donors asking for refunds for unauthorized charges to their bankcards made by Clinton’s campaign. One elderly Clinton donor, who has been a victim of this fraud scheme, has filed a complaint with her state’s attorney general and a representative from the office told her that they had forwarded her case to the Federal Election Commission.

“We get up to a hundred calls a day from Hillary’s low-income supporters complaining about multiple unauthorized charges,” a source, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of job security, from the Wells Fargo fraud department told the Observer. The source claims that the Clinton campaign has been pulling this stunt since Spring of this year. The Hillary for America campaign will overcharge small donors by repeatedly charging small amounts such as $20 to the bankcards of donors who made a one-time donation. However, the Clinton campaign strategically doesn’t overcharge these donors $100 or more because the bank would then be obligated to investigate the fraud.

“We don’t investigate fraudulent charges unless they are over $100,” the fraud specialist explained. “The Clinton campaign knows this, that’s why we don’t see any charges over the $100 amount, they’ll stop the charges just below $100. We’ll see her campaign overcharge donors by $20, $40 or $60 but never more than $100.” The source, who has worked for Wells Fargo for over 10 years, said that the total amount they refund customers on a daily basis who have been overcharged by Clinton’s campaign “varies” but the bank usually issues refunds that total between $700 and $1,200 per day.

The fraud specialist said that Clinton donors who call in will attempt to resolve the issue with the campaign first but they never get anywhere. “They will call the Clinton campaign to get their refund and the issue never gets resolved. So they call us and we just issue the refund. The Clinton campaign knows these charges are small potatoes and that we’ll just refund the money back.”

The source said that pornography companies often deploy a similar arrangement pull. “We see this same scheme with a lot of seedy porn companies,” the source said. The source also notes that the dozens of phone calls his department receives daily are from people who notice the fraudulent charges on their statements. “The people who call us are just the ones who catch the fraudulent charges. I can’t imagine how many more people are getting overcharged by Hillary’s campaign and they have no idea.”

The source said he’s apolitical but noted that the bank’s fraud department is yet to receive one call from a Donald Trump supporter claiming to have been overcharged by Trump’s campaign. “I’m only talking to you because what Hillary’s doing is so messed up, she’s stealing from her poorest supporters.” …

Carol Mahre, an 81-year-old grandmother of seven from Minnesota, is one of the victims of Clinton’s campaign donor fraud scandal. In March, Mahre said she made a one-time $25 donation via Clinton’s official campaign website. However, when she received her U.S. Bank card statement, she noticed multiple $25 charges were made. Mahre, who said in an interview she only contributed $25 because she’s “not rich” and that’s all she could afford, contacted her son, Roger Mahre, to help her dispute the unauthorized charges.

Roger, who is an attorney, told the Observer that he called the Clinton campaign dozens of times in April and early May in an attempt to resolve the issue. “It took me at least 40 to 50 phone calls to the campaign office before I finally got ahold of someone,” Roger said. “After I got a campaign worker on the phone, she said they would stop making the charges.”

Incredibly, the very next day, Carol’s card was charged yet again and the campaign had never reversed the initial fraudulent charges. “I was told they would stop charging my mother’s card but they never stopped.” He added that he knows his mother did not sign up for recurring payments. “She’s very good with the internet so I know she only made a one-time payment.” Roger also pointed out that even if his mother mistakenly signed up for recurring monthly payments then she should’ve been charged for the same amount of money each month, not multiple charges for varying amounts on the same day or in the same month. Furthermore, Roger said that after the campaign was made aware of this situation, the charges should’ve stopped but they never did. …

A representative from Minnesota’s Democratic attorney general’s office told Roger that this problem wasn’t in their jurisdiction and that they had forwarded the case to the FEC. However, FEC spokesperson Julia Queen told the Observer they have no record of the case. “We don’t have it,” Queen said. The Observer contacted Swanson’s office and did not hear back.

Roger did eventually get a letter from a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign. In the letter, the lawyer wrote that his mother would be removed from their donor list; however, the campaign did not take any responsibility for the fraudulent charges.

“They basically said that they weren’t accepting responsibility for this but they’d remove my mom from the donor list,” he said. Roger is less than happy with the way the Clinton campaign has handled this nightmare for him and his mother. “This is a load of crap!” Mahre said. “The self-righteousness of politicians drives me insane. If you and I did this, we’d be thrown in jail. This is theft, fraud or wire fraud—it’s a federal crime!”

Since Carol’s story became public, Roger said he’s heard from other people who have been ripped off by the Clinton campaign. “I’ve heard this is happening to other small donors,” Roger said. “People will donate $25, but then when they receive their credit card statement, they are charged $25 multiple times.”

The incident hasn’t just left a bad taste in Roger’s mouth. Carol decided she’s not going to vote for Hillary even though she’s voted for the Democratic presidential nominee every election since President Dwight Eisenhower won reelection in 1956. “My mother is a lifelong Democrat and she’s voted every election in her life for a Democrat but she’s not going to vote for Hillary,” Roger said.

The New York Times reported in 2007 that Clinton’s first presidential campaign had to refund and subtract hundreds of thousands of dollars from its first-quarter total often because donors’ credit cards were charged twice. Additionally, it was reportedthat Clinton had to refund a stunning $2.8 million in donations, three times more than the $900K President Barack Obama’s campaign refunded.

Another bank source told the Observer that Clinton’s motivation in purposefully overcharging donors is not only to rake in more money for her campaign but also to inflate her small donor numbers reported to the FEC. “This gives a false impression about how much money Clinton has raised,” the source said. “The money that the bank has refunded would not be reflected in the FEC filings till after the election. This gives off the illusion to the public that her support and the amount she’s raised is much greater than what it is in reality.”

A Clinton campaign worker named Kathy Callahan, who worked on Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2008, claimed in a blog post that Clinton fraudulently overcharged her by several thousand dollars. She wrote that she voluntarily left the campaign’s finance committee after she discovered $3,000 in unauthorized charges made by Clinton’s campaign to her Visa card. Callahan said the unauthorized charges caused $400 in overdraft and bank charges and put Callahan over the legal donor limit. Callahan said that after a month of “begging and pleading,” she wasn’t able to get her money back until she threatened to go to authorities. However, when she was finally refunded her money the Clinton campaign refused to compensate her for the $400 in overdraft and bank charges.

Callahan also wrote that Matt McQueeney, who worked in the compliance and accounting department at Clinton’s campaign headquarters at the time, told her, “What happened to you with credit card errors is happening to others.” McQueeneyreportedly parted ways with the Clinton campaign shortly after this incident occurred. Backing up what McQueeney claimed, there were several incidents similar to Callahan’s reported in 2008. Callahan and McQueeney could not be reached for comment.

In 2001, the Clintons were accused of attempting to steal items donated to the White House during Bill’s presidency as he exited office. There was $190,000 worth of gifts in question that the Clintons shipped to their then new estate in Chappaqua, New York. Multiple donors said that they had understood that the items they had donated during Clinton’s presidency were to stay in the White House as part of the 1993 White House redecoration project. Initially, the Clintons claimed that the items in question were given to them prior to President Clinton taking office; however, government records proved otherwise. Facing strong criticism, theClintons decided to return several items including $28,500 in furnishings and they paid $86,000 for other gifts.

This is what Hillary Fraud looks like:

Lest you think since you can’t spell “Hillary” without L-I-A-R that Donald Trump is a model of rectitude, Wonkette shows that The Donald has all the credibility of an ’80s infomercial:

People who set up monthly donations to the Trump campaign are discovering that if they want to cancel, the campaign’s website doesn’t provide any obvious means for halting the automated monthly withdrawals from their bank accounts. Do tell us more, Mic.com!

On Wednesday, CNN reporter Jeremy Diamond tweeted a screenshot of an email from a disenchanted Trump donor who alleged that the campaign has not returned voice message requests to cancel contributions (The identity of the alleged donor is not shown). …

The good folks at Mic proceeded to set up a $1 recurring donation, then took screenshots of their attempts to cancel it using the Trump campaign website. They found options for switching their regular payment from one credit card to another, but not to remove their payment information altogether. …

Now, you DO get a confirmation email from the campaign — but it doesn’t say dick about how to stop your payments or report problems, either. You can click “unsubscribe,” but sorry, that’s only for the email list. Your money will keep marching off to Trump like the brooms in Fantasia. Which YOU probably saw while you were dropping acid, you damn hippie. …

Now, it turns out that there is a way to cancel monthly donations through Trump’s site, which Mic goes on to explain, but it’s a multi-step process that’s not the least bit intuitive — nothing so obvious as “remove card” or “cancel recurring donation.” Also, if you set up a donation that’s in a large enough amount, the Federal Election Commission just might investigate you for campaign fraud if you end up giving more than the maximum allowable $2700 to a single campaign. Fun, huh?

Fraud or never-ending donations. Fun, huh?
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You’ll find this blog déplorable

September 19, 2016

US politics
Daniel Henninger:

Hillary Clinton’s comment that half of Donald Trump’s supporters are “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic”—a heck of a lot of phobia for anyone to lug around all day—puts back in play what will be seen as one of the 2016 campaign’s defining forces: the revolt of the politically incorrect.

They may not live at the level of Victor Hugo’s “Les Misérables,” but it was only a matter of time before les déplorables—our own writhing mass of unheard Americans—rebelled against the intellectual elites’ ancien régime of political correctness.

It remains to be seen what effect Hillary’s five phobias will have on the race, which tightened even before these remarks and Pneumonia-gate. The two events produced one of Mrs. Clinton’s worst weeks in opposite ways.

As with the irrepressible email server, Mrs. Clinton’s handling of her infirmity—“I feel great,” the pneumonia-infected candidate said while hugging a little girl—deepened the hole of distrust she lives in. At the same time, her dismissal, at Barbra Streisand’s LGBT fundraiser, of uncounted millions of Americans as deplorables had the ring of genuine belief.

Perhaps sensing that public knowledge of what she really thinks could be a political liability, Mrs. Clinton went on to describe “people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them … and they’re just desperate for change.”

She is of course describing the people in Charles Murray’s recent and compelling book on cultural disintegration among the working class, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010. This is indeed the bedrock of the broader Trump base.

Mrs. Clinton is right that they feel the system has let them down. There is a legitimate argument over exactly when the rising digital economy started transferring income away from blue-collar workers and toward the “creative class” of Google and Facebook employees, no few of whom are smug progressives who think the landmass seen from business class between San Francisco and New York is pocked with deplorable, phobic Americans. Naturally, they’ll vote for the status quo, which is Hillary.

But in the eight years available to Barack Obama to do something about what rankles the lower-middle class—white, black or brown—the non-employed and underemployed grew. A lot of them will vote for Donald Trump because they want a radical mid-course correction. Which Mrs. Clinton isn’t and never will be.

This is not the Democratic Party of Bill Clinton. The progressive Democrats, a wholly public-sector party, have disconnected from the realities of the private economy, which exists as a mysterious revenue-producing abstraction. Hillary’s comments suggest they now see much of the population has a cultural and social abstraction.

To repeat: “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic.”

Those are all potent words. Or once were. The racism of the Jim Crow era was ugly, physically cruel and murderous. Today, progressives output these words as reflexively as a burp. What’s more, the left enjoys calling people Islamophobic or homophobic. It’s bullying without personal risk.

Donald Trump’s appeal, in part, is that he cracks back at progressive cultural condescension in utterly crude terms. Nativists exist, and the sky is still blue. But the overwhelming majority of these people aren’t phobic about a modernizing America. They’re fed up with the relentless, moral superciliousness of Hillary, the Obamas, progressive pundits and 19-year-old campus activists.

Evangelicals at last week’s Values Voter Summit said they’d look past Mr. Trump’s personal résumé. This is the reason. It’s not about him.

The moral clarity that drove the original civil-rights movement or the women’s movement has degenerated into a confused moral narcissism. One wonders if even some of the people in Mrs. Clinton’s Streisandian audience didn’t feel discomfort at the ease with which the presidential candidate slapped isms and phobias on so many people.

Presidential politics has become hyper-focused on individual personalities because the media rubs them in our face nonstop. It is a mistake, though, to blame Hillary alone for that derisive remark. It’s not just her. Hillary Clinton is the logical result of the Democratic Party’s new, progressive algorithm—a set of strict social rules that drives politics and the culture to one point of view. A Clinton victory would enable and entrench the forces her comment represents.
Her supporters say it’s Donald Trump’s rhetoric that is “divisive.” Just so. But it’s rich to hear them claim that their words and politics are “inclusive.” So is the town dump. They have chopped American society into so many offendable identities that only a Yale freshman can name them all.

If the Democrats lose behind Hillary Clinton, it will be in part because America’s les déplorables decided enough of this is enough.

Inclusive? I seem to recall …

… Hillary’s throwing the entirety of the population that considers themselves to be conservative under the bus 20 years ago. Maybe her pneumonia/Parkinson’s/dementia is fueled by her hatred for us conservatives.
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Presty the DJ for Sept. 19

September 19, 2016

Music
The number one single today in 1960:

Today in 1969 the number two single on this side of the Atlantic was the number one single on the other side …

… from the number one album:

(more…)
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Presty the DJ for Sept. 18

September 18, 2016

Music
We begin with the National Anthem because of today’s last item:

The number one song today in 1961 may have never been recorded had not Buddy Holly died in a plane crash in 1959; this singer replaced Holly in a concert in Moorhead, Minn.:

Britain’s number one album today in 1971 was The Who’s “Who’s Next”:
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“We the People …”

September 17, 2016

Culture, History, US politics
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Article. I.

Section. 1.

All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Section. 2.

The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.

When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.

The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.

Section. 3.

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.

Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and of the third Class at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one third may be chosen every second Year; and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies.

No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.

The Senate shall chuse their other Officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the Absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States.

The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.

Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.

Section. 4.

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.

Section. 5.

Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as each House may provide.

Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.

Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy; and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal.

Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.

Section. 6.

The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.

Section. 7.

All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.

Every Order, Resolution, or Vote to which the Concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of Adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States; and before the Same shall take Effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the Rules and Limitations prescribed in the Case of a Bill.

Section. 8.

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;—And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Section. 9.

The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken.

No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.

No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another: nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay Duties in another.

No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

Section. 10.

No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it’s inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress.

No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.

Article. II.

Section. 1.

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President. But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; A quorum for this Purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot the Vice President.

The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.

The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be encreased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:—”I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Section. 2.

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

Section. 3.

He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

Section. 4.

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Article III.

Section. 1.

The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.

Section. 2.

The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;—to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;—to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;—to Controversies between two or more States;— between a State and Citizens of another State,—between Citizens of different States,—between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed.

Section. 3.

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

Article. IV.

Section. 1.

Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.

Section. 2.

The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.

A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.

No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.

Section. 3.

New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.

Section. 4.

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened), against domestic Violence.

Article. V.

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

Article. VI.

All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Article. VII.

The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.

The Word, “the,” being interlined between the seventh and eighth Lines of the first Page, The Word “Thirty” being partly written on an Erazure in the fifteenth Line of the first Page, The Words “is tried” being interlined between the thirty second and thirty third Lines of the first Page and the Word “the” being interlined between the forty third and forty fourth Lines of the second Page.

Attest William Jackson Secretary

done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independance of the United States of America the Twelfth In witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names,

G°. Washington
Presidt and deputy from Virginia

Delaware
Geo: Read
Gunning Bedford jun
John Dickinson
Richard Bassett
Jaco: Broom

Maryland
James McHenry
Dan of St Thos. Jenifer
Danl. Carroll

Virginia
John Blair
James Madison Jr.

North Carolina
Wm. Blount
Richd. Dobbs Spaight
Hu Williamson

South Carolina
J. Rutledge
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney
Charles Pinckney
Pierce Butler

Georgia
William Few
Abr Baldwin

New Hampshire
John Langdon
Nicholas Gilman

Massachusetts
Nathaniel Gorham
Rufus King

Connecticut
Wm. Saml. Johnson
Roger Sherman

New York
Alexander Hamilton

New Jersey
Wil: Livingston
David Brearley
Wm. Paterson
Jona: Dayton

Pensylvania
B Franklin
Thomas Mifflin
Robt. Morris
Geo. Clymer
Thos. FitzSimons
Jared Ingersoll
James Wilson
Gouv Morris
Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Amendment III

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Amendment VII

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Amendment VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
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Presty the DJ for Sept. 17

September 17, 2016

Music
Today in 1931, RCA Victor began selling record players that would play not just 78s, but 33⅓-rpm albums too.

Today in 1956, the BBC banned Bill Haley and the Comets’ “Rockin’ Through the Rye” on the grounds that the Comets’ recording of an 18th-century Scottish folk song went against “traditional British standards”:

(It’s worth noting on Constitution Day that we Americans have a Constitution that includes a Bill of Rights, and we don’t have a national broadcaster to ban music on spurious standards. Britain lacks all of those.)

Today in 1964, the Beatles were paid an unbelievable $150,000 for a concert in Kansas City, the tickets for which were $4.50.

(more…)
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Engines as God intended them

September 16, 2016

media, Wheels
My new Road & Track magazine included Jack Baruth‘s paean to the best non-nuclear power source man ever invented, which requires multimedia additions:

It starts with the sound. You can’t mistake a V8 at wide-open throttle for anything else, and once that sound gets into you, nothing else will satisfy. The internal-combustion engine offers a veritable symphony of exhaust notes, from the boxer blat of a flat-six to what is often called the “ripping canvas” sound of a V12, but the bent-eight is the violin of the orchestra, the concertmaster’s choice. It is simultaneously exotic and democratic, appearing in quarter-million-dollar supercars and everyday work trucks. You hear its song in the Lotus 49 and the Ford Crown Victoria. The V8 logo has proudly adorned the fenders of Ford Mustangs and AMG-powered Mercedes-Benzes. It is the archetypal American performance engine, but it was also the logical choice for the first Lexus LS 400. Some people say it is the only engine that matters. …

Henry Ford didn’t invent the V8, but he made it available and accessible. In 1932, Ford put a “flathead” V8 in his Model 18 after a short, troubled, and somewhat incomplete design and development process. The flathead design, which placed the exhaust and intake valves in the block next to the cylinder instead of above it, was already old tech at the time. At 65 hp, the flathead’s output was more than 50 percent higher than the four-cylinder in the Model A but wasn’t significantly more powerful than Chevrolet’s inline-six.

Ford’s advantage was curb weight. The Model 18 was a couple hundred pounds lighter than the competition, making it perhaps the first American muscle car. The price was right, too: $460 for the roadster. The flathead wasn’t without teething problems in early production, but nobody seemed to care. Production barely kept up with demand. And just like that, the V8 established itself—in the United States, anyway.

Strictly speaking, the notion of connecting two inline-four engines to make an eight-cylinder wasn’t even an American idea; French engineer Léon Levavasseur filed the first patent for a V8 in 1902, and in 1905, Henry Royce designed one for the Legalimit, a model so named because its engine—powerful enough to go 26 mph—was governed not to exceed the 20-mph British restriction of the time. As with pizza and swiss cheese, however, the new world lost little time in adopting the idea for its own purposes. In 1914, Cadillac became the first automaker to put the V8 into volume production, capturing the imagination of the American public and setting the stage for Ford to democratize the concept 18 short years later. …

American V8s sound different from European V8s …

After the war, a new generation of overhead-valve V8s appeared from the likes of Oldsmobile, Buick, Studebaker, and Cadillac, but those marques all carried a significant price premium. Chevrolet, Ford’s most frequent antagonist for the annual-sales crown, didn’t offer a modern V8 until 1955. To put it mildly, it was worth the wait.

Ed Cole, Chevrolet’s newly promoted chief engineer on the project, had ambitious goals for what came to be known as the “Mighty Mouse” engine. His personal motto was “Kick the hell out of the status quo,” and the Chevrolet small-block did just that. It weighed less than the Blue Flame inline-six that preceded it but made considerably more power. Just as important, it was designed to be capable of growing from its original displacement of 265 cubic inches (4.3 liters) all the way to 428 cubic inches (7.0 liters) in the 2000s. It was an overhead-valve design, with two valves per cylinder operated by a single cam nestled in the vee of its cast-iron block, and it benefited from every innovation, and every lesson, that General Motors had learned during the design and production of its upscale siblings.

Cole’s small-block V8 should be considered one of mankind’s greatest inventions in any area given that the basic design — with aluminum replacing iron, fuel injection replacing carburetors, computer controls and pollution-reduction equipment — is still being used today, even in non-GM cars. (For instance, a ’30s Ford I saw at a car show last weekend.)

Ford had actually beaten Chevrolet to market with its Y-block overhead-valve V8, but it was quickly apparent that it couldn’t cut the mustard against Cole’s brilliant effort. The Y-block’s replacement, the 1961 Windsor V8, made a much better case for itself, particularly in the new Mustang that appeared three years later. In the decades to come, the small-block Ford V8 would become synonymous with the Mustang brand, from the original Shelby GT350 to the Boss 302 all the way to the infamous “five-point-oh” Mustangs of the Eighties and Nineties.

By 1963, every major American manufacturer had at least one modern V8 design, with some fielding both a small-block for general-purpose use and a big-block for full-size cars and trucks. Most of these engines, like the small-block Chevrolet, were designed with considerable room between the cylinder bores to accommodate increases in displacement. When John Z. DeLorean found a way to circumvent an internal GM policy limiting cars to 10 pounds per cubic inch, the result was the 389-cubic-inch 1964 Pontiac GTO and the beginning of the muscle-car era. …

Perhaps the most interesting overseas V8, however, was one with American origins. In 1960, Buick released a small, light, all-aluminum V8 engine for use in compact and mid-size cars. It wasn’t a big hit, so the company decided to cancel the program. A few enterprising fellows at U.K. automaker Rover convinced GM to sell them the tooling. In 1967, the Rover V8 made its debut in the P5B luxury sedan; three years later, it was used as the power unit in a brand-new off-road vehicle called, simply, Range Rover. The Rover V8 became the engine of choice for a variety of English small-batch sports-car manufacturers, including Morgan, TVR, and even MG, in its MGB GT V8 coupe from 1973 to 1976.

The V8, then, is a global superstar. But what makes it so good, so desirable, so widely adopted for both street and competition cars? There are several answers to that question. The first is that the V8, in its traditional overhead-valve, 90-degree bank-angle form, tends to be light, compact, simple, and smooth. It’s light because the block is considerably smaller than the block of an equivalent inline engine. It’s compact because it is the same length as an inline-four of half the displacement, without being twice as wide. It’s simple because it has a single short camshaft to serve eight cylinders and 16 valves. And it’s smooth because most V8s have a 90-degree crankshaft that balances the firing order, reduces vibration, and spaces out the power pulses.

The 90-degree crankshaft also gives the V8 the unique burble that has threaded its way into the popular consciousness over the past 80 years. It’s the stock soundtrack for every action movie and television show, so much so that Back to the Future used a Porsche 928’s engine noise instead of the actual sound of the DeLorean’s V6. But the V8’s cultural impact goes deeper than an exhaust note. The Beach Boys’ “little deuce coupe with a flathead mill” was “stroked and bored,” and their “409” was, of course, the big-block Chevy engine. Chuck Berry’s “Maybellene” is about a race between two V8s—an early Coupe de Ville and a V8 Ford, most likely a flathead since it appears to have that design’s tendency to overheat at high speed.

Nor can you even begin to consider the automobile’s relationship to the silver screen without seeing the outsize star power of the bent-eight. The list includes everything from Mad Max to Vanishing Point to The Blues Brothers. The Bandit’s Trans Am? V8, of course—but you might not know that the Firebirds used in The Rockford Files also had the Pontiac 400 under the hood. Starsky and Hutch had a V8; so did Bo and Luke Duke. Two-Lane Blacktop is the story of a battle between a big-block Chevy-powered ’55 and a 455 Pontiac GTO. Last but not least, there’s that Mustang GT 390 driven by Frank Bullitt, evading a 440 R/T Charger on the hills of San Francisco. It’s about as basic as a Mustang can get, except for the motor—but did you think that Steve McQueen would have been caught dead driving the Thriftpower inline-six that came standard?

As for “Bullitt,” this is what his Mustang actually sounded like …

… and this is when the 390 V-8 was magically replaced by the V-8 from the Ford GT-40 at Le Mans, along with a more-than-four-speed transmission …

… in the greatest movie car chase scene of all time.

When the fuel crisis of the Seventies hit, the V8 acquired a new name and a new reputation: gas-guzzler. It didn’t help that newly mandated emissions equipment and the unleaded fuel required by the catalytic converter stole a lot of its power and prestige. But even in the darkest days of the energy crisis, when the speed limit was a dismal double-nickel and Jimmy Carter was on television telling us to turn our thermostats down to an equally depressing 55 degrees at night, the romance of the V8 continued. Mad Max drove a V8 Interceptor in 1979’s idea of the future, while the 1982 Corvette still had a 350 small-block. All the V8 needed was some good news on fuel price and maybe a bit of technology to help it reach the next millennium.

Both were forthcoming, leading to a veritable supernova of new V8 designs and new homes for those designs. Lexus, Infiniti, BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Cadillac, and Lincoln all introduced new 32-valve, overhead-cam V8s. Ford modernized its V8 with the Modular overhead-cam engine, while Chevrolet reengineered the traditional small-block into the LS series. You could get a V8 in everything from the Yamaha-engined, third-gen Ford Taurus SHO to the outrageous BMW Z8. The horsepower wars returned in earnest, and the V8 led the charge. …

The good news is, there are still plenty of brilliant V8s on the market. On the exotic side, there’s the Ferrari 488 GTB and every new McLaren supercar. Affordable V8 choices exist in the form of both pickup trucks and pony cars from Ford, GM, and Chrysler.

Somewhere in the middle, you have the stunning 8250-rpm flat-crank 5.2-liter mill in the Shelby GT350 Mustang; the Corvette Stingray’s stout-hearted, naturally aspirated LT1; and the almighty supercharged 707-horse Hemi from the Dodge Charger and Challenger SRT Hellcats. The latter engine is a testament to what can happen when modern technology is applied to a traditional formula. From its iron block to the single camshaft nestled in the bank between its cylinders, very little about the Hellcat’s basic design would shock the men who designed the 135-hp Oldsmobile Rocket V8 for the 1949 model year, but every aspect of that design has been painstakingly massaged and computer-engineered to a space-age level. …

So although the future might be filled with snail-stuffed small-displacement engines thrashing tunelessly through a CVT or assisted by an electric motor, you can consider us unconvinced. A boosted V6 or inline-four might turn impressive numbers on the dyno or the drag strip, but the bent-eight remains the gold standard of internal-combustion engines. It sounds right. It feels right. And it looks stunning beneath the lifted hood of a Mustang or the glass engine cover of a Ferrari. We’ll continue to cheer, and choose, the V8 as long as we can. Even after the last small-block Chevy or flathead Ford or flat-crank Shelby GT350 is silenced forever. As long as that sound exists, even in our memories, the V8 will continue to be the only engine that matters.
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